Recommended Posts

Well, as some of you may have heard, I recently bought a 6990 off a local from OCAU. This card seemed to have some problems with its cooling, as at stock speeds it hit 103 degrees on each gpu and subsequently downclocked to keep itself from crashing.

To solve the problem I got myself a Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 cooler, which took 23 hours to be picked, shipped across Australia, then installed onto my system

So, i figured, why the hell not get out my camera and tripod and take some pics, so here is a mini review/how to guide for this cooler

Enjoy

Here is the box that was shipped to me from Melbourne, inside it contained the answer to my ears prayers, something to quiet down the jet turbine that had been sitting on my desk for the past two days

Unboxing this monstrous cooler begins

Front of the cooler, sporting 10 heatpipes and two 120mm fans, this had better be able to keep the card under control

Back of the cooler, sporting a pair of copper contacts for the GPUs.

Thermal pads and grease, for the RAM, VREGs and GPU cores respectively

My stock 6990, in all its ear-splitting glory

Backplate of the stock 6990. Note the backplate, retention brackets and screws are all reused when installing the new cooler

Both retention brackets and all screws removed from the backplate

The nekkid card After removing the screws, the backplate and cooler are removed from the PCB, requiring little force, especially if the card is hot. I ran 3dmark11 prior to removing the card from my system, leaving everything warm and the cooler came off with very little effort

Closeup of the dual GPU PCB. Its a shame how you never get to see all this unless the card is in bits, it is really fascinating to see how everything comes together.

Comparison of the front and back of the stock and upgraded cooler

The 6990 all cleaned up, ready to meet the new cooler

Thermal pads and paste attached to the bottom of the new cooler. Note the fan cable attached to the 6990

The PCB and backplate is then flipped up and over ontop of the cooler, making sure it all lines up

Screws and retention brackets installed. Order of the screws is important here to get the cooler to sit properly. The instructions make it very clear what needs to be done

Link to post

Share on other sites

Idle is average temperature running desktop for 5 min, GPU1 is hooked up to 4 screens, resulting in higher temps

Load is maximum temp reached during 3dmark11 Performance tests

Temperatures is in Degrees Celsius

Stock speed - 820 MHz Core, 1250 Ram

Stock cooler:

Idle temp: GPU1 - 72 , GPU2 - 40 , VREG - No idea

Load temp: GPU1 - 106 , GPU2 - 106 , VREG - No idea

*Note the card ran so hot, that it had to downclock to 450MHz core on each gpu, which is idle speeds*

Fan speed at load: 100%

Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler:

Idle temp: GPU1 - 42 , GPU2 - 32 , VREG - 50

Load temp: GPU1 - 62 , GPU2- 55 , VREG - 72

Fan speed at load: 29%

Overclocked speed - 940 MHz Core, 1400 Ram

Stock cooler:

Idle temp: N/A

Load temp: N/A

Fan speed at load: N/A

*Note the card ran so hot at idle, overclocking it was impossible*

Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler:

Idle temp: GPU1 - 46 , GPU2 - 32 , VREG - 52

Load temp: GPU1 - 65 , GPU2- 58 , VREG - 82

Fan speed at load: 29%

When using the stock cooler, the card would overheat running a very lightweight game such as Minecraft or Magicka, then throttle its speeds down to idle speeds (450MHz on the core) to prevent futher overheating. Even after throttling the card would still hit 106 on the Core.

When using the Arctic Cooling cooler, the card ran very cool, both at stock and overclocked. Currently the card is overclocked to match the card on the OCC review, found here http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_hd6990/4.htm except Ram speed is slightly lower. Due to having low Core, Ram and VREG temps when overclocked, i will continue to overclock this card until it reaches its limit, whether that be thermally or it begins artifacting. It is worth noting that on auto fan control, the Arctic Cooling fan never went over 29%, on load or at idle.

Performance

Score is the Graphics score from 3dmark11, i am not using the total score, as i am currently only running an i3 at stock speeds, due to being between selling my old system and buying my new one

Stock speed - 820 MHz Core, 1250 Ram

Stock cooler:

6347 3dmarks

Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler:

10014 3dmarks

Overclocked speed - 940 MHz Core, 1400 Ram

Stock cooler

N/A

Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo 6990 Cooler:

10367 3dmarks

Due to removing the thermal throttling present on the stock cooler, performance climbed massively when upgrading the cooler. This is not a fair representation of performance increase when using an aftermarket cooler, it only works in my case due to having a faulty stock cooler.

Overclocking this carrd increases performance, and I have a feeling that after removing the bottleneck of a Intel i3 cpu, performance will only increase.

Noise

I do not own a SPL meter but so here is some subjective testing on the sound levels.

When gaming or in a benchmark, the stock cooler can be heard outside the room with the door closed. It was louder than normal talking volume and people that i was on teamspeak with couldn't hear me or anyone else on the chat over the sound. Most people thought it was a vacuum cleaner before i told them it was a graphics card.

The Arctic Cooling cooler however, is silent under gaming and benchmarking, even overclocked. The sound of a stock Intel i3 cooler is louder than the graphics card cooler, as is the 140mm fan on the Corsair HX 1000 is louder than it too.

In conclusion, anyone who has a stock 6990, I would highly recommend getting this cooler. If not for the temperatures, for the sake of your ears

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I wonder what is actually wrong with the stock cooler...perhaps a bad fan? You should tear the shroud off and see what the insides look like.

Also - when installing full cover heatsinks / waterblocks I find it a lot easier to place the thermal pads on the card itself rather than the cooler. It makes alignment FAR easier and you know for sure that you aren't missing any chips because of a slight misalignment.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I wonder what is actually wrong with the stock cooler...perhaps a bad fan? You should tear the shroud off and see what the insides look like.

Also - when installing full cover heatsinks / waterblocks I find it a lot easier to place the thermal pads on the card itself rather than the cooler. It makes alignment FAR easier and you know for sure that you aren't missing any chips because of a slight misalignment.

Nice pictures and mini-review though!!!

Yeah, ill do a teardown of the stock cooler. the fan certainly was spinning fast, my ears can vouch for that. and it pushed a large amount of air out both ends of the card.

As for the pads, i decided to follow instructions to the letter, but i see where you are coming from, would be nice to know for certain a vreg didnt get missed

Thanks for the feedback, i had my camera and tripod out so i figured why not